Pages

Creeds in Churches

Sunday, October 12, 2014

The sermon this morning was pretty interesting - it has to do with the Christian creeds, and the material that was handed out was printed with The Apostles' Creed, which is unusual for a Baptist church.*

From what I know, Baptists are a non-creedal denomination. And this is what I read from Wikipedia:

Many evangelical Protestants...reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even while agreeing with some creeds' substance. The Baptists have been non-creedal "in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another". While many Baptists are not opposed to the ancient creeds, they regard them as "not so final that they cannot be revised and re-expressed. At best, creeds have a penultimacy about them and, of themselves, could never be the basis of Christian fellowship". Moreover, Baptist "confessions of faith" have often had a clause such as this from the First London (Particular) Baptist Confession (Revised edition, 1646): Also we confess that we now know but in part and that are ignorant of many things which we desire to and seek to know: and if any shall do us that friendly part to show us from the Word of God that we see not, we shall have cause to be thankful to God and to them.

Pastor Marvin did mention that as much as creeds are not used in our services, it does contain the barest minimum of doctrine and statement of faith of a Christian, and to that I agree.

I felt really nostalgic reciting The Apostles' Creed, as prompted by Pastor in midst of his sermon, though it did not have the "right feel" because we read it, rather than chant as it is done in services that commonly have readings. But it was still good.

pearlie
* Note: I am a Methodist currently attending a Baptist Church ;)

Agree! I did it every week in my old Methodist church. I miss the readings a lot - both the The Apostle Creed and the Holy Communion readings - now that I am in a Baptist church. Well, can't have the cake and eat it too I suppose.

I attend the largest UMC in the US and we have a variety of services. Our downtown campus takes communion every week, has contemporary singing and watch the sermon (from the senior pastor) on a movie screen. Services at other campuses are a mix of the traditional and contemporary but each one has a reading before the sermon.